How to Create a Bootable USB Drive for Installing almost any OS

You have downloaded an ISO file and now you need to create a Bootable USB flash drive using it. So how do you do it?

If you are using Windows, you can use the free Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool provided by Microsoft to create a Bootable USB flash drive using the downloaded ISO file. This tool is only provided with the purpose of creating Bootable USB flash drives for windows operating systems only.

While the tool is able to create Bootable USB flash drives easily, it does has its fare share of problems too. For example, the tool requires you to install Net Framework 2.0 before you install it and even if you do so, the tool is too slow compared to other similar tools available for creating Bootable USB flash drives.

For those who are looking to create Bootable USB flash drive for almost any OS, here a guide that will help you to do it the easy way. Before we proceed with the process of creating an USB flash drive from an ISO file, here are all the things that you will needing in this process.

Download the ISO file for the respective Operating System

To begin with you will need to download the ISO file for the OS you want to install. If you want to install Linux, a quick Google search will provide you many popular websites to download the ISO files for the OS you are interested in installing. If you need to install Windows 7, You can download the Windows 7 ISO file from here.

Download Rufus

Once you have resourced or downloaded the ISO file for the OS that you want to install, you will then need to download a free tool called as Rufus which will help you to create a Bootable USB flash drives from an ISO image.

Step 4: Select the NTFS file system if the ISO file is more than 4GB in size.

Step 5: Leave the cluster size as default.

Step 6: Under the format options select the following.

Select “ Quick Format “

Select “ Create extended label and icon files “

Select “ Create a bootable disk using “

Step 7: Click on the drive icon beside “ Create a bootable disk using “ to select the ISO file.

Step 7: Finally verify all the above settings and click on the Start button to write the Bootable ISO onto the USB flash drive.

Similarly you can also follow the above steps for creating Bootable USB drives for other operating systems such as Linux and more. One of the best things about Bootable USb flash drives is the free space on the USB drive is usable.

Now you can connect the USB flash drive to your PC and carry on with installing the OS.

List of Operating Systems supported by Rufus

Here is a list of operating systems that are officially supported by Rufus.

Arch Linux

Archbang

BartPE/pebuilder

CentOS

Damn Small Linux

Fedora

FreeDOS

Gentoo

GParted

gNewSense

Hiren’s Boot CD

LiveXP

Knoppix

KolibriOS

Kubuntu

Linux Mint

NT Password Registry Editor

OpenSUSE

Parted Magic

Partition Wizard

ReactOS

rEFInd

Slackware

Tails

Trinity Rescue Kit

Ubuntu

Ultimate Boot CD

Windows XP (SP2+)

Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows Vista

Windows 7

Windows 8

Windows 8.1

About The Author

Lovejeet is a Proud Geek and tech. enthusiast, who is ardent to learn more about the technology that surrounds us. He loves to tinker around with his gadgets and when he find something new and exciting, he shares it with you on this blog. Last but not the least he is a true gamer by heart. Connect with him on Google+ and Twitter